René Descartes, a French philosopher,
mathematician and scientist (brilliant man, read about him!) once writes,
"The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest
minds of past centuries" :)

Oprah's Book Club was a book discussion
club segment of the American talk show 'The Oprah Winfrey Show', highlighting
books chosen by host Oprah Winfrey. Winfrey started the book club in 1996,
selecting a new book, usually a novel, for viewers to read and discuss each
month. I'm sure her desires is to #LetsMakeReadingCoolAgain

If you're like me - a bookworm - you'll
feel dumber every day you don't read a book(s). It doesn't make sense! I know...
Only readers know how it feels... If you do, share this with fellow bookworms’ 😜😝

I read this quote: At a dinner party in
Paris when Benjamin Franklin was one of the distinguished guests, the Abbe
Raynal asked, "What kind of man
deserves the most pity?" Franklin answered, "A lonesome man on a rainy day who does not know how to read."

Perhaps when a man is lonesome today,
you may see him busy with the phone. But if he replaces it with a good, solid
book (most of us nowadays are fortunate, we can read!) - And read it, he will
become an interesting and more intelligent man 🤓😐😁

Roald Dahl, a British novelist,
probably put so little value on TV during his time 😂. But nevertheless,
the essence of his message is no doubt... clear. So, the question is, what are
you going to "throw" away so that you can read more books this year
and years to come? 📖😊

I can tell you at least one book in
every genre that I read that either change my life or change my mind/opinions
or bring joy to me. Books are treasures! That's why I love to read books and
sell books. I'm a book-evangelist 📖👟. Helen Exley puts it this
way, “Books can be dangerous. The best
one should be labeled ‘This could change your life" 💌

We have mutual respect for each other.
We have been a friend since campus time (although from different campuses)
during one of FES camps. Many people know Simon as a talented model, singer and
speaker but I see more than his social media posts. I see a leader within him,
a humble person and a gentleman. A natural leader because no matter where he
goes or put in charge of, he always makes the best of every opportunity. A
humble person because he loves to ask questions, willing to learn and
God-fearing man. A gentleman because I've witnessed lots of time how he treated
women, older people and young kids.

Although he is meteorically far from
being perfect and flawless – he is consistent. So if you know such a man, you
need to ask him lots of questions to learn from. As for now my question to him
is this: "What's your top 5 books
that make a difference in your life?" Here are the lists:

1) TED
Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking (2017) by Chris Anderson

One day a barista friend saw me reading
a book 📖 alone and she asked me, "Oh [her face displayed her empathy 😢], nobody with you?"
Obviously no. For readers being alone 🙏 is not our biggest fear - not
having a book 📖 while we're alone is! 😂

LESS THAN 10 MINUTES BOOK REVIEW on M. David Dealy with Andrew Thomas's Managing by Accountability: What Every Leader Needs to Know about
Responsibility, Integrity - and Results (2007)

At its core, accountability is the
responsibility to act. It is the commitment to do the right thing and stand by
your decisions. And it is something that must come from within 😊. In
this video, I would like to share 5 Key Lessons that I Learned from this book.
Enjoy!

I
love these Penguins of Madagascar! When
I watched movies of them, I see great examples of leadership and teamwork: 1)
Skipper, the leader of the penguins always devises tactics and gives orders; 2)
Rico, the team's weapons and explosives specialist; 3) Kowalski, acts as the
group strategist and gadgeteer; 4) Private, the youngest and most emotionally
sensitive member. He tends to take things simpler. As you watch the video, here
are 5 lessons of teamwork that I learned:

It
was said that "Children are great imitators. So give them something great to
imitate." Are our children see adults around them worth imitating?
Do they admire their parents and respect older people? Are they aspire to serve
others, to be leaders? Late Billy Graham puts it like this, “The greatest legacy one can pass on to one's
children and grandchildren is not money or other material things accumulated in
one's life, but rather a legacy of character and faith.”

In
this video, taken from Forum Corp 1990 (source not clear), kids were asked
three (3) questions:

1)
What is a good leader?

2)
What makes leading difficult?

3)
Anything else?

Watch
the video and be surprised (I was!) by these kids' wisdom and understanding 💪😉😀🙇🙇🙇

One
of my favorite quotes on leadership is by Jim Rohn, author and motivational
speaker: "The challenge of
leadership is to be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but
not a bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud,
but not arrogant; have humorous but without folly.”

Maybe
not the first Ironman, but as the character progress, surely this quote is best
describing Tony Stark a.k.a. Iron Man and his leadership. Taken from Disney XD Asia (https://youtu.be/bMaZt1-ewTQ), here are
Iron Man's three (3) tips to becoming a
leader: